Towards the study of actor training in an age of globalised digital technology

The article offers some reflections on the study of the possibilities and impact of global digital connectivity vis-à-vis actor training. The traditional teacher–student relationship is problematised to highlight other learning environments beyond the institutional and which indicate auto-didactic processes. The advance in new learning technologies in the twenty-first century is seen to appropriate the lack of a shared physical location between teacher and student in order to recreate it as a space for autonomous agency via the mediation of online transmission and interaction. The article argues that this technological development does not as yet mark a radical paradigm shift but a re-visitation of fundamental aspects associated with auto-didactic approaches in autonomous and non-institutional situations. A spectrum of 'guided auto-didactic' practices and a concept of hybridity are proposed to underline continuity and evolution – rather than disruption and revolution – in relation to the advent of digital technology in the field of actor training.